singing cherries---Friday 5/Friday Fiction

with his fingers in that blue porcelain cherry bowl
he picked a few, popped those into his mouth.
without discarding pips, he started singing
those notes going off key.

Unaware of those strange stares he kept on,
lost in a world of his own.
No more cherries left now, he suddenly stopped,
finding himself in a beach-side restaurant.

all were quiet save him; he wished for the ground
to crack up and swallow him whole
without a single word he got up.
walking as hurriedly as the sand would allow him.

waiter bore the brunt of it
as he had forgotten to pay for those cherries.

Friday 5: brunt, crack, key, cherry, discard

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for February, 1 2008: Your character was lost in her own thoughts. When she snaps back to reality, she realizes she was singing out loud. Unfortunately, she wasn't somewhere private. How embarrassing... Take it from there.

bag and baggage----3WW

Approach
Bottle
Smooth

there were sunken puckers, where orbs of her eyes ought to be.
she crouched on the ground, pulled out a sack from underneath her bed;
untied it clumsily, poured its content on dusty floor.
sightless she might have been, her instincts worked fine.
with right approach, she found an almost empty bottle of wine.
this, she had saved for special occassion. she took a swig,
relishing those last few drops of rancid liquor.
changing into her least patched clothes,
covering her head with a shawl which had seen better days-
leaving everything, she walked out, ready to go to a new place.

foraging, begging days were over; her tired bones needed rest.
old home for the destitute had come to her rescue
hopping into ferrying van, she huddled into a corner;
closing her eyes relishing her moment of glory.

when they came to help her out, death had claimed her
ever so swiftly, wrinkled skin, now smooth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*This is roughly based on a real life story. There are too many beggars and rag-pickers in the streets, including the very old. Lucky ones get picked by a home for the destitute. Younger ones do not want to be. However, the older lot homeless that they are, wish for it.

Life Force------Totally Optional Prompts/The Last Piaster

This week's prompt is a quote: "When you were called upon to speak, you were supposed to say why you think you're alive, why you were born, and why you're still around: What are your reasons? Everyone needs to come up with his or her own personal answer." From a novel called Diary of a Heretic, by Kathleen Maher. For an extra twist... try responding to this prompt without using the word "I" (me, my, mine).

Piaster 003 Vision Burn Brain Drain from The Last Piaster

Integrate each of these 11 phrases unchanged and in the order listed throughout your poem. There are no other restrictions. This exercise should cause a few of those synapses to fire.

the moon, broken off like
a red flower brilliant as
her fingers delicate as
the island stretches off the coast like
your backbone rigid like
the bicycle careening down the hill like
soft as
crazy bird its song like
she spun of like
his monotonous voice like
days pass like

I experimented, combining both.

She stood watching the moving sliding clouds. Slipped out
the moon, broken off like a biscuit dipped in tea.
She smiled, concentrating on the sky,
Mars showed up like a red flower brilliant as a ruby
on her fingers delicate as
a cooked plate of noodles she had eaten a while back.
Her vision reached far, thinking
how the island stretches off the coast like
a shapeless amoeba in her school biology book so long ago.

Sighing, she asked the polar star
"why is your backbone rigid like ramrod?"
A noise broke into her reverie, looking towards the road, she saw her husband
on the bicycle careening down the hill like a serpent slipping on glass.
For a miniscule moment, scaring her out of wits,
her thoughts revolving like falcons preying.
Drops of rain fell on her soft as melted butter
That lonely helicopter acted like a crazy bird, its song like
a screeching tyres of a skidded car.

At the sound of deep dark silence, she spun of like a top.
With mixed feeling, she watched her husband walking down to her
and heard his monotonous voice like pebbles hitting water,
ripples of her heart going round and round.
Why had she blanketed out her mind, shrouded it with boredom with him,
letting her days pass like snail trying to cross a road, costing all his lifetime.
What was it that kept her alive; pages of her days should have ended.
A tiny whimpering sound tugged at her heart.
Picking up her infant from the carrycot, she hugged her daughter.

Reflexively baring her nipple for her baby to feed on.
Nurturing a life created by her is reason enough to live, to be born.

Poking angles

It was a very interesting prompt by Read.Write.Poem. That is, to incorporate mathematics into a poem. I had initially thought of using a mathematical equation as a refrain and write a Villanelle. I even started one. I trashed it and wrote this piece. I post this for Monday Poetry Train too...

Enclosed in the blackboard, tangents go in all directions

Can secants be left behind, cutting the circle into two
They show their supremacy.
Radii watch silently holding hands with chords.
Inscribed angles lie askew
Central angles shed tears.
Sectors made, Segments demarcated,
Triangles cut into shapes.
Nothing left of that ringed shape.

What started the fight
Who asked the toughest question
It was just a taunt by centre of that circle to the inscribed angle
Don’t you know I am double your value
Pandemonium broke out.
Fist fights, poking eyes by those staid rays of the angles
Squeaking voices, scratching parts

All things considered, what it said stands true-
Inscribed angle in a circle is half its central angle

Do feel free to critique it.

*Update: I found a new prompt, Weekend Wordsmith. This post works great for their last prompt, It's illegible as many think of mathematics as that.

Housing my soul

This is getting ridiculous, my obsession for you
I am beyond any thing else, save you
I know I am being very predictable
Grand passion, heated body, exploded senses are nothing new
In a way, those are most over-rated.
You can see how everyone goes on and on about it.
Still, that is how I feel about it.
As they show in those movies
Write in those soppy novels
Can’t you feel electricity flowing through us?
Each electron going towards its goal with a single mindedness
My fingers slowly touching you, pushing all those buttons
Right touch, exact amount of pressure
Nothing is forced or contrived
Intensity seems to touch a new height each time
Newness never ceases to surprise me
Is it all from my side?
Without me you are reduced to nothing, incomplete, a block of wood
Even after so long an association, you are so detached
Do you realise, when I wish to forget myself, I come to you
How our desires merge, becoming one.
Housing my soul in yours, we together make music

Arty? Not me!!------Sunday Scribblings

Posting this for Miscellaneous for Sunday Scribblings.

In July 2007, I joined a course for Art Appreciation conducted by National Museum in Delhi. There are twenty classes of two hours duration each every Thursday for 6 months, that is, until mid December. One has to attend at least 16 lectures and submit an assignment consisting of answering five questions out of many at the end of the course. After that is evaluated, one gets a certificate through convocation, held by the museum.

The big question is why I joined it and what does it entail?
Since I was in school, I had heard of this course conducted by National Museum. I had wanted to attend it. Something or the other came up and I could never get around it. This course is not really meant for those arty types! It is in fact for the nonprofessional, who has no knowledge of art, to create awareness about what is art, how it developed through the centuries, why we should learn about it. Therefore, people from diverse fields who are interested to know about art, join this course. From journalists to diplomats, to bureaucrats, teachers, students, homemakers and of course, foreigners.

Every Thursday, it felt good to attend the classes from 5:30-7:30 pm. It had been a long time since I took any kind of course. The lectures were good and interactive. Those covered history of art right from Stone Age to present times. It dealt mostly with Indian art although Japanese and Chinese art were taken separately. The influence of religion was taken in a detailed way. The centuries were seen through development of art, i.e., sculptures, terracotta, architecture, collages, various forms, certain nuances pertaining to those prevailing times. Via art, architecture, I learnt about history, those finer points of it, I knew nothing about.

We were shown films, slides and provided with materials for certain lectures. Although, National Museum is a familiar place for me but a guided tour was in the agenda of the course and it was very enlightening to see it through the eyes of the academicians. There was a field trip too for the various monuments in Delhi at the end of the course. One had an enhanced sense of understanding those various art forms on those monuments. There was a difference in our outlook before and after the course. Writing those assignments too taught me a lot. I had to look around from books, internet and photographs. After a long time, I was doing assignments and that too I opted for hand written ones.

What did it teach me? Mainly history and how to look for finer details to know what period it might have been made. It also taught me about mindset of rulers. The subtle shift of religion... when, where, why and how was somewhat understood. It felt good to interact with such a varied group of people. Our discussions were good. In a way, I was richer for the experience. I think more people should opt for it. I am trying everyone I know to get enrolled into it..:D

swaying dandelions---[Fiction] Friday/Friday 5

[Fiction] Friday Challenge for January 25, 2008:
Describe a first brush with danger.

Friday 5
cohere, dandelion, immerse, create, glass

Danger had been omnipresent, serpentine in her vicinity
Why hadn’t she recognised signs
Symbols enveloped by deadly intent
Coated with syrupy honey
Too late should be banned, declared passé
She shivered with after effects
Wiping her dry eyes, she resumed her work
Fingers typed furiously so much so that keyboard jarred
Still Immersed in those vitriolic words,
she was unaware of what she was creating
Jumbled prose refused to cohere.
Nonetheless, she continued with mad tapping
Dandelions placed in glass vase wilted by her sombre mood
Her much coveted blue-framed spectacles slipped, shattering to splinters
She picked pieces with her bare hands
Lacerate was inevitable, so was flow of blood
Stinging antiseptic soothed her cut with sweetest of pain
With a detachment befitting a queen, her thoughts were

‘Why is it that mental anguish diminishes physical distress’